The revised design for the West Heating Plant redevelopment strays further from the existing building. (rendering courtesy of The Levy Group)

Plans to redevelop the long-vacant West Heating Plant inched forward
last Wednesday, as the fourth iteration of designs for the proposed
110-foot luxury condo building won support from Advisory Neighborhood
Commission 2E (Georgetown, Burleith).

Opened in 1948 and shuttered half a century later, the art deco
industrial building at 29th and K streets NW has drawn divided opinions:
Neighbors generally see it as an unsightly stain on the otherwise
upscale Georgetown neighborhood, while some preservationists have argued
that it has historic significance.

In May, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts approved a proposal that
would essentially demolish the historic plant to construct a new
10-story, 60-unit Four Seasons Residences building and an adjacent
public park. The project would retain the heating plant’s approximate
dimensions, its 29th Street facade, the structure of its existing
windows and a stone wall at the perimeter of the property.

The proposal would replace the West Heating Plant with a modern residential building. (rendering courtesy of The Levy Group)

Despite their support for these general plans in May, Fine Arts
Commission members requested bolder architecture that replicated the
old heating plant in a less literal way. The project team presented
these revisions at ANC 2E’s Sept. 6 meeting, in advance of a Sept. 20
review by the Commission of Fine Arts. ANC 2E has also supported past
iterations of the project.

The building’s new design is indeed “less suburban” — as requested by
the Commission of Fine Arts — drawing more clearly from its industrial
past. The proposed east facade has been altered to add an exterior steel
frame and large metal balconies, contrasting with its sweeping glass
walls, while the condo’s north side is decorated with vertical rows of
rusted steel, offset with sweeping window panels. In all, updated
designs use a more diverse array of materials in an effort to better
straddle the intersection of history and modernity.

The planned 1-acre public park, which would sit on top of the
building’s 80-space parking garage on the property’s former coal yard,
also saw design revisions after May’s Fine Arts critiques.

The green space, whose construction and maintenance will be funded by
the condo building, echoes the industrial plant through an “unexpected
combination” of design features, landscaper Laurie Olin of OLIN Studio
said at last week’s meeting. These include metal water troughs of
different heights, the use of steel, a conveyer belt and several metal
benches, contrasted with sprawling lawns and flowering plants.

The West Heating Plant project includes a new condo building and an adjacent public park. (rendering courtesy of The Levy Group)

“Turns out, they’re the same pieces that we had in the previous
scheme — it’s just the formal expression now speaks more to the recent
history of it as an industrial site,” Olin said. “It is actually much
more integrated with the architecture of the building.”

The project has been moving slowly toward construction approval. The
Levy Group acquired the vacant heating plant from the federal government
in 2013, and enlisted famed architect David Adjaye to reimagine the
industrial site as a high-end residential property. The project has
faced numerous design iterations amid conflicting opinions about how to
respect a hulking yet historic industrial building — and further hurdles
remain.

The West Heating Plant project has two upcoming appointments: with
the Fine Arts Commission on Sept. 20 and the D.C. Historic Preservation
Review Board on Nov. 2. The latter hearing will include consideration of
a landmark application filed by the DC Preservation League.

The West Heating Plant is a vacant industrial building at 29th and K streets NW. (Brian Kapur/The Current/April 2015)

Early next year, the project team moves on to the Mayor’s Agent for
Historic Preservation, who can allow demolition of historic buildings to
accommodate a project of “special merit”; and the Zoning Commission,
which will review the project’s size, scale, public benefits and traffic
impact as part of a planned unit development.

Levy said the project would break ground in 18 to 24 months, but
declined to provide an opening date. “My crystal ball is not clear about
that yet,” Levy said.

In an interview, Ward 2 D.C. Council member Jack Evans said he expects the development to revamp a dilapidated site.

“My concern is that it’s just taken way too long,” Evans said, which
he attributed to a somewhat misguided squabble over the plant’s historic
status. “Frankly that’s not in my view — it’s very unsightly; a
somewhat out of place building for Georgetown.”

ANC 2E chair Joe Gibbons is also looking forward to the project’s
completion, saying that the “bold interpretation” reflected in the
proposed designs pays homage to Georgetown’s industrial past while
looking toward the future.

“We want this project to get started, for people to be walking around, for people to be utilizing it,” he said.